The decoration of ceramic ware has normally been accomplished in the art by the use of decalcomanias. These decalcomanias, or decals, are normally prepared by laying down the desired design in the form of a mixture of metallic oxide color materials and a vitrifiable flux on a decal backing sheet of a specially prepared paper which has been coated with a water soluble material, such as a gum, using either lithographic or silk screen printing techniques. Using modern registration techniques any number of colors may be deposited to form intricate designs with various degrees of shading and the like. The decals normally have a lacquer coating as the upper surface and various color layers are applied in a lacquer medium so that when finished they represent a self-supporting structure. Thus, softening the water soluble layer in water permits their transfer from the carrying paper to the ware where they are fixed by normal ceramic techniques.
There are also methods of decorating ceramics by the use of a deformable head which picks up color that has been inked onto a flat plate or roller, in other cases picks up ceramic ink that has been deposited onto an etched plate and transfers this single color onto a piece of ware. These techniques can put a design onto any portion of the plate, but can only print a single color. If more than a one color design is to be made in this method they must be done in separate operations and registered, one color to the other. This procedure is quite difficult and costly. On most of the better ware where more than one color is deposited, hand painting is used to fill in the one color printed areas to give the desired effect.
The method of this invention provides no limitation to the number of colors, and our registration is accomplished on a flat sheet of paper printed on conventional printed presses allowing for the greatest registration possible and tonal effects which cannot be produced by the aforementioned methods. In addition, such multi-color decals and prints being made presently cannot conform to every area of the plate that one would wish to have decorated, because in trying to fit a tissue print or even a heavy lacquer film required to carry the design on a conventional decal onto some of the surfaces of a curved piece of ware, a great deal of difficulty is encountered including creases and distortion of the prints, and in many cases poor firing results. With the present process one may accomplish something which has never been done before; to put a multicolored print that has been printed to its highest degree of accuracy and beauty onto any area of the ware.